clawsie:
i recently saw xmonad mentioned on reddit, but there was a quick followup that it was not quite ready for public use. has this changed?
It's ready for public use -- indeed all the developers are using it. Currently we're in the middle of a 'freeze': just bug fixes till release 0.1 comes out in a week or so.
i am a current dwm user and generally love the tiling concept, although i do not care for dwm's source code-based config system. will xmonad support a plain-text conf file?
It uses a plain text Haskell config file, and supports dynamic reloading of this file (mod-ctrl-shift-q). That is, its a strongly statically typed config language, with first class functions and data types, compilable to native code :-)
beyond being written in haskell, are there any compelling features in xmonad (planned or to-date) to differentiate it?
Xinerama support, tiny code base (~400 lines), ease of modification, QuickCheck properties for internal systems.
how does xmonad compare to dwm with regards to system resrouce use?
Roughly identical, maybe 200k more heap. Note that we use more efficient data structures internally (O(log n) maps in preference to lists). 31747 dons 2 0 3432K 1892K sleep poll 0:05 0.00% xmonad Cheers, Don